St Martin's Flats
St Martin's Flats was a large residential complex in the Highgate area of Birmingham city centre. The housing complex was constructed in the late 1930s on land bound by Vaughton Street, Thomas Street, Dymoke Street and Angelinas Street. Prior to clearance, the 5 and a half acre site was divided by Emily Street and housed a complex of slums. The construction of the flats was the first slum clearance and redevelopment schemes in Birmingham, and marked the beginning of flat construction in Birmingham into the postwar period. Planning Plans for the flats were drawn up in 1931 under the direction of councillor Theodore Pritchett, who became chairman of the council's Estates Committee in November 1931. He persuaded the council to support his plan for the construction of 180 maisonettes on the site in April 1932, in his first major report. He also presented an alternative proposal for flats but believed that maisonettes plan was of a higher standard due to the lower densities than that presented by flats. The rents in both proposals were the same. Earlier proposals for redeveloping the site had been much more costly than Pritchett's plan, and this pleased the Finance Committee. Construction of maisonettes began in 1933. Those displaced by the clearance of the slums were housed in vacant slum buildings elsewhere in the centre, prompting Labour party members to support plans for flats (which they had initially opposed). As a result, Pritchett accepted an amendment in January 1934 to examine the potential of constructing flats on the site. Pritchett returned in April of the year with a plan for 240 flats at the Emily Street site. Due to the fall in building costs, the inclusive cost of flats was now less than that of maisonettes, and this made it possible for the council to judge a flat proposal purely on its merits as accommodation. Debates held in that month by residents and councillors showed a near-equal split over the plan with one half supporting the maisonettes plan and the other for the flats plan. Labour members, representing the working class communities, were still mostly in favour of the maisonettes plan and this led to an overall support for the continuation of the proposal. By August 1935, the Mail suggested that the council were now mostly in favour of the flats proposal, and Pritchett returned the Emily Street flats plan to the council in October, suggesting constructing the complex out of concrete would adequately take steps to meet the housing shortage in Birmingham at a time when few bricklayers were available. This was agreed by the council, a historic decision that would shape Birmingham's attitude to flat construction in the postwar period. Pritchett promised that the best possible design would be selected from an open-design competition, which was adjudicated by Louis de Soissons, the founder and architect of the famous Welwyn Garden City. He selected a balcony-access plan submitted by London-based G. Grey Wornum and Anthony C. Tripe, which was met by harsh criticism from the general secretary of the Modern Architectural Research Group (MARS). The merits of the design lay mostly in the high density of the flats (44.35 dwellings per acre) and the cost of construction, rather than appearance, although some alterations were made to the layout in response to the criticisms. Construction and deterioration Construction of the new complex began in 1937 in the northeastern corner and was completed by April 1939. The low rise complex consisted of three large blocks, no higher than four storeys in height, with concrete used to clad the exterior formed to appear like bricks in a "clothed concrete" system. The blocks immediately became unpopular with the first residents, confirming the fears of academics who studied the proposals prior to construction. It was used as an example by working class people and the Labour party in examples against the construction of flats. The use of concrete also made the blocks inherently damp and the flats quickly deteriorated. In the postwar period, the council sought to dispel the image of the flats as they constructed new modern blocks. The council spent vast sums of money on the Duddeston Four blocks to make them the utmost quality and to eradicate the image of the St Martin's complex, although they proved to be the most expensive municipal housing complex built by the council and were never to be repeated. The flats were eventually demolished in 1981 and private houses were built on the site in 1987. External links *Image of St Martin's Flats *Image of St Martin's Flats *Image of St Martin's Flats *Image of St Martin's Flats Category:Highgate Category:Birmingham Category:Demolished housing estates